Rough Times
Once again suffering has struck our town, the hail storm has hit our town very harshly. Caves on the sides of the mountains flooded, many houses damaged and worst of all the bridge that connects us to the outside world has collapsed. As i am a heavy sleeper I didn’t even wake up to the storm. When I woke up in the morning it was a gloomy day and everywhere looked run-down. My tool shack had been ruined and a tree had fell on the side of the house. All my project sketches soaked and some of my tools were unusable. This is a set back for me, probably not going to get done this week. I was regretting not getting the amulet, now i have to live with the consequences.
Being born into a builder family that goes back generations to the first settlements in this village, i have to help rebuild the bridge. At a counseling meeting in the village centre, I offered to donate 20 of my building resources to the rebuilding of the bridge. It is going to be rough now that most of the logs and ropes in vicinity are wet, we as builders have to figure something out fast so that we can re connect with the outside world.
Talking about the outside world a messenger came to town just before the hailstorm broke hell loose on our village. He told us that the neighboring village was breaking out with a disease presumably caused by the Naga spirit. Also known as the Lu, the serpent of the water, a deity that takes the shape of a giant snake. It was believed that the serpent poisoned peoples skins when one went into the water it resided in.
It is in my strong beliefs and in the Buddhist doctrines to help others in time of need. Karma literally means action, we can never stop acting therefor karma never ends. We live in a Karmic Cycle in which our actions bad or good has consequences we cannot escape.There are positive actions of the mind, body and speech through which one can be born into one of the three higher realms and negative that can result in births in lower realms with more suffering to endure. Being born into higher realms eventually leads to enlightenment and the breaking of the karmic circle, a way out of this world of suffering. My goal like many, Tibetan Buddhist is to reach enlightenment through my practices and life. There for in going to practice positive action of generosity and helping others by donating 10 gold coins for medicine to be sent to the neighboring village. However before anything we have to re build the bridge to even get in contact with our sick neighbors.
As one of my weekly rituals i take a long walk through our village on sunday evenings. Contemplate about worldly experience of suffering and our conditioned existence characterized by impermanence, dissatisfaction and suffering. If everything is impermanent how can we account for continuity? One point I elaborated on the most was the unique Buddhist belief of Anatman, the doctrine of no self. The main question in my head was that if there is no eternal self, than what is it that gets re-born into different realms? Walking around thinking I found my self around the Bodhi Tree, this was a sacred spot so I sat under it to practice some meditation. I don’t know how long i sat there for but when I opened my eyes and saw something hanging from one of the branches. Climbing the tree I got to the ribbon around the branch and hanging from it were prayer flags. It felt like a sign so i put them in my rucksack and brought them home thinking I would bring them to the next village council.
The next morning I journeyed to the monasteries library to further my knowledge about the worldly understanding and answer my questions about Anatman. As I read through different texts i came to conclusions. As all things are subject to constant change and impermanence so is our beings at every level. We account for continuity through the doctrine of dependent origination, Pratitya Samutpada. It explains certain things happen because the conditions for them to happen exist and certain things don’t happen because the conditions for them to happen do not exist. Reading about Anatman i found out all indic traditions understand matter to be two different types. Gross matter, psychical matter, things we can sense with our five senses. Subtle matter, our thoughts beliefs, things we cannot sense. Gross matter is our bodies that die and perish, subtle matter is what moves on and gets re-born.
With all this new knowledge and my newly found prayer flags i felt more at ease even though the storm had harmed alot. Ahead lies a busy and rough week, I am ready to see what it brings.
